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I know that here in the US the Christmas season doesn't officially start until the day after Thanksgiving, but they were playing Christmas music at the store yesterday and had all of the Christmas stuff out and it got me in a Holiday mood. 
This has been around a few years.
'Twas The Night Before Christmas
'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the
annual Yuletide celebration, and throughout our place of residence,
kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this
potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus
musculus.
Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of
the wood burning caloric apparatus, pursuant to our anticipatory
pleasure regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric
philanthropist among whose folkloric appellations is the honorific
title of St. Nicholas.
The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their
respective accommodations of repose, were experiencing subconscious
visual hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving
rhythmically through their cerebrums.
My conjugal partner and I, attired in our nocturnal head
coverings, were about to take slumberous advantage of the hibernal
darkness when upon the avenaceous exterior portion of the grounds
there ascended such a cacophony of dissonance that I felt compelled
to arise with alacrity from my place of repose for the purpose of
ascertaining the precise source thereof.
Hastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers
sealing this fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance
without, reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline
precipitation, might be said to rival that of the solar meridian
itself - thus permitting my incredulous optical sensory organs to
behold a miniature airborne runnered conveyance drawn by eight
diminutive specimens of the genus Rangifer, piloted by a minuscule,
aged chauffeur so ebullient and nimble that it became instantly
apparent to me that he was indeed our anticipated caller.
With his ungulate motive power traveling at what may possibly
have been more vertiginous velocity than patriotic alar predators, he
vociferated loudly, expelled breath musically through contracted
labia, and addressed each of the octet by his or her respective
cognomen - "Now Dasher, now Dancer..." et al. - guiding them to the
uppermost exterior level of our abode, through which structure I
could readily distinguish the concatenations of each of the 32 cloven
pedal extremities.
As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was
performing a 180-degree pivot, our distinguished
visitant achieved - with utmost celerity and via a
downward leap - entry by way of the smoke passage.
He was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by the ebony
residue from oxidations of carboniferous fuels which had accumulated
on the walls thereof.
His resemblance to a street vendor I attributed
largely to the plethora of assorted playthings which he bore
dorsally in a commodious cloth receptacle.
His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his
submaxillary dermal indentations gave every
evidence of engaging amiability.
The capillaries of his malar regions and nasal
appurtenance were engorged with blood which suffused
the subcutaneous layers, the former approximating the
coloration of Albion's floral emblem, the latter that of the
Prunus avium, or sweet cherry.
His amusing sub- and supralabials resembled
nothing so much as a common loop knot, and their ambient
hirsute facial adornment appeared like small, tabular and columnar
crystals of frozen water.
Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smoking
piece whose grey fumes, forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput,
were suggestive of a decorative seasonal circlet of
holly.
His visage was wider than it was high, and when
he waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulent abdominal region undulated
in the manner of impectinated fruit syrup in a hemispherical container.
He was, in short, neither more nor less than an obese, jocund,
multigenarian gnome, the optical perception of whom
rendered me visibly frolicsome despite every effort
to refrain from so being.
By rapidly lowering and then elevating one eyelid and rotating his
head slightly to one side, he indicated that trepidation on my part was
groundless.
Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the
aforementioned appended hosiery with various of the
aforementioned articles of merchandise extracted from his
aforementioned previously dorsally transported cloth receptacle.
Upon completion of this task, he executed an abrupt about- face,
placed a single manual digit in lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory
organ, inclined his cranium forward in a gesture of leave-taking, and
forthwith effected his egress by renegotiating (in reverse) the smoke
passage.
He then propelled himself in a short vector onto his conveyance,
directed a musical expulsion of air through his contracted oral sphincter
to the antlered quadrupeds of burden, and proceeded to soar aloft
in a movement hitherto observable chiefly among the
seed-bearing portions of a common weed. But I
overheard his parting exclamation, audible
immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond the
limits of visibility:
"Ecstatic Yuletide to the planetary constituency, and to that self
same assemblage, my sincerest wishes for a salubriously beneficial
and gratifyingly pleasurable period between sunset and dawn."
HO! HO! HO!
This has been around a few years.'Twas The Night Before Christmas
'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the
annual Yuletide celebration, and throughout our place of residence,
kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this
potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus
musculus.
Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of
the wood burning caloric apparatus, pursuant to our anticipatory
pleasure regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric
philanthropist among whose folkloric appellations is the honorific
title of St. Nicholas.
The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their
respective accommodations of repose, were experiencing subconscious
visual hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving
rhythmically through their cerebrums.
My conjugal partner and I, attired in our nocturnal head
coverings, were about to take slumberous advantage of the hibernal
darkness when upon the avenaceous exterior portion of the grounds
there ascended such a cacophony of dissonance that I felt compelled
to arise with alacrity from my place of repose for the purpose of
ascertaining the precise source thereof.
Hastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers
sealing this fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance
without, reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline
precipitation, might be said to rival that of the solar meridian
itself - thus permitting my incredulous optical sensory organs to
behold a miniature airborne runnered conveyance drawn by eight
diminutive specimens of the genus Rangifer, piloted by a minuscule,
aged chauffeur so ebullient and nimble that it became instantly
apparent to me that he was indeed our anticipated caller.
With his ungulate motive power traveling at what may possibly
have been more vertiginous velocity than patriotic alar predators, he
vociferated loudly, expelled breath musically through contracted
labia, and addressed each of the octet by his or her respective
cognomen - "Now Dasher, now Dancer..." et al. - guiding them to the
uppermost exterior level of our abode, through which structure I
could readily distinguish the concatenations of each of the 32 cloven
pedal extremities.
As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was
performing a 180-degree pivot, our distinguished
visitant achieved - with utmost celerity and via a
downward leap - entry by way of the smoke passage.
He was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by the ebony
residue from oxidations of carboniferous fuels which had accumulated
on the walls thereof.
His resemblance to a street vendor I attributed
largely to the plethora of assorted playthings which he bore
dorsally in a commodious cloth receptacle.
His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his
submaxillary dermal indentations gave every
evidence of engaging amiability.
The capillaries of his malar regions and nasal
appurtenance were engorged with blood which suffused
the subcutaneous layers, the former approximating the
coloration of Albion's floral emblem, the latter that of the
Prunus avium, or sweet cherry.
His amusing sub- and supralabials resembled
nothing so much as a common loop knot, and their ambient
hirsute facial adornment appeared like small, tabular and columnar
crystals of frozen water.
Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smoking
piece whose grey fumes, forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput,
were suggestive of a decorative seasonal circlet of
holly.
His visage was wider than it was high, and when
he waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulent abdominal region undulated
in the manner of impectinated fruit syrup in a hemispherical container.
He was, in short, neither more nor less than an obese, jocund,
multigenarian gnome, the optical perception of whom
rendered me visibly frolicsome despite every effort
to refrain from so being.
By rapidly lowering and then elevating one eyelid and rotating his
head slightly to one side, he indicated that trepidation on my part was
groundless.
Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the
aforementioned appended hosiery with various of the
aforementioned articles of merchandise extracted from his
aforementioned previously dorsally transported cloth receptacle.
Upon completion of this task, he executed an abrupt about- face,
placed a single manual digit in lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory
organ, inclined his cranium forward in a gesture of leave-taking, and
forthwith effected his egress by renegotiating (in reverse) the smoke
passage.
He then propelled himself in a short vector onto his conveyance,
directed a musical expulsion of air through his contracted oral sphincter
to the antlered quadrupeds of burden, and proceeded to soar aloft
in a movement hitherto observable chiefly among the
seed-bearing portions of a common weed. But I
overheard his parting exclamation, audible
immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond the
limits of visibility:
"Ecstatic Yuletide to the planetary constituency, and to that self
same assemblage, my sincerest wishes for a salubriously beneficial
and gratifyingly pleasurable period between sunset and dawn."
HO! HO! HO!
:rofl: